Received: from malur.postgresql.org ([217.196.149.56]) by arkaria.postgresql.org with esmtps (TLS1.3) tls TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (Exim 4.94.2) (envelope-from ) id 1v0uUG-002EFn-TW for pgsql-general@arkaria.postgresql.org; Tue, 23 Sep 2025 04:18:44 +0000 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=malur.postgresql.org) by malur.postgresql.org with esmtp (Exim 4.94.2) (envelope-from ) id 1v0uUF-003PwC-ER for pgsql-general@arkaria.postgresql.org; Tue, 23 Sep 2025 04:18:43 +0000 Received: from makus.postgresql.org ([2001:4800:3e1:1::229]) by malur.postgresql.org with esmtps (TLS1.3) tls TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (Exim 4.94.2) (envelope-from ) id 1v0uSp-003MYk-E4 for pgsql-general@lists.postgresql.org; Tue, 23 Sep 2025 04:17:15 +0000 Received: from sss.pgh.pa.us ([68.162.161.243]) by makus.postgresql.org with esmtps (TLS1.3) tls TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (Exim 4.96) (envelope-from ) id 1v0uSn-001sHD-0f for pgsql-general@lists.postgresql.org; Tue, 23 Sep 2025 04:17:14 +0000 Received: from sss1.sss.pgh.pa.us (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sss.pgh.pa.us (8.15.2/8.15.2) with ESMTP id 58N4H3DL3017588; Tue, 23 Sep 2025 00:17:03 -0400 From: Tom Lane To: "Dan Mahoney (Gushi)" cc: pgsql-general@lists.postgresql.org Subject: Re: Quick questions about postgres name? In-reply-to: <40e1228d-eb4b-5741-4ee3-eaba23831a84@gushi.org> References: <40e1228d-eb4b-5741-4ee3-eaba23831a84@gushi.org> Comments: In-reply-to "Dan Mahoney (Gushi)" message dated "Tue, 23 Sep 2025 04:06:49 -0000" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <3017586.1758601023.1@sss.pgh.pa.us> Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2025 00:17:03 -0400 Message-ID: <3017587.1758601023@sss.pgh.pa.us> List-Id: List-Help: List-Subscribe: List-Post: List-Owner: List-Archive: Archived-At: Precedence: bulk "Dan Mahoney (Gushi)" writes: > It makes mention of the original professor who spearheaded the project > under a DARPA grant, but it would probably do well to know where the name > came from. You should read Joe Hellerstein's recollections [1]. But tl;dr: the origin of the name is the old INGRES database system; Postgres was then named Post-inGres. There are also some references to PostQUEL referring to the ancient QUEL (QUEry Language) project [2]. regards, tom lane [1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1901.01973 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QUEL_query_languages regards, tom lane